The Sun. — London, England, 1810-01-08 00:00:00

IMPORTANT DOCUMENTS, RELATIVE TO THE ERENCES BETWEEN GREAT BRITAIN AND AMERICA. UR. SMITH . 710 MR. PINCKNEY. Department of State, Nov. 23, 1809. Si to s --My letters in the correspondence with Mr. Jackson; already transmitted 'to you, sufficiently evince-the disappointment that was felt, on finding that he - -had not been charged to make to this Go vernment either the frank explanations or the liberal propositions which the occasion manifestly required. Instead of this obvious course of proceeding;- it was, is the outset perceived that his objeet was to bring us to resume the subjects of the arrangements of April, in a si , ay that Would imply that we. were aware that the arrangement was not binding on his .Go , . vernment, 'because made with a knowledge on (stir part that Mr: Erskine had no authority to make it, and thus to convert the responsibility of his Gverri . - mem for the disavoWal,s 'into a reproach on this for its Condo& in the transa&ion disavowed. In the first'instance it was-deeMed best rather to repel his observations argurrientatively, than to meet them as an offensive insinnaton.. This forbearance had not the expeoted effe& of restraining him from a repel • tition of the offence; and &vett on his farther tniatiens, nothing more was done than to premonish him of the inadnaisSibility of so indecorous a course of proceeding'. This also being witliout effect, no thing remained hut the step finally taken; and there was the less hesitation in shutting the door to further opportunities for insulting insinuations, as toe dis • closures be had made, and the "spirit of his discus , sions, had so entirely shut it to the hope of any fa vourable result from his Mission. 1 will not dwell on his reluetance to give up the uncertainties of verbal for the precision of written discussion ; nor on 'the manner or the time of his de nial that he had given any room at all for a state . ment, which, in order to guard against the miscon ceptioes incident to verbal conferences, I had placed - before hint in writing, 'with a request that he would point oat any inaccuracies, and to which tie did not then object otherwise than by intimating, that he could not have made the statement with the par ticular view' which ,seemed to be supposed, Nor will I dwell on the various instances in which partial or inconsistent views of the subjet%have taken place of its real merits. But it may not be amiss :to make ' some observations on the correspondence, as . 'it re - - , lates to the ,justification of his Goliernment in having disavowed 'the ad of his predecessor. With respeCt to the Orders in Council, the ground of the diSavowal is the difference between the arratte-' ' ment and the printed dispatch of Mr. Canning to Mr. Erskine. of the 23d , January. According to this dispatch Theo, the arrangement failed in three points. In not relinquishing the trade of the United States•with enemies' colonies. • With respe& to this point, it is not necessary, at ' • this time to discuss the right- of that trade. It. is ' sufficient to remark, Ist, that as the. trade is admit, • ted to have become, in the view of Great Britain o of. little praolical importance, why has it been made a ground of the disavowal, and espac'tally, as important considerations only could, upon principles of public law, have justified a . ruca3uic of oo acricas a Charac ter ? 2d, 'That as the colonial trade is a subje&mo wise connefted either, with theprders in Council, or with the affair of the _Chesapeake, why bas it been per milted to frustrate an arrangement' relating to those subjekis; and to those , only ? spd. That as this condition is alloWed to have originated in n supposi tion, that it would be agreeable to the American Government, why has it been persisted in after the error was male known by the representation of Mr. Erskine to his Government, that neither this nor the other conditions of the dispatch of the 23d January were atrainable here ? 2d. Another point in the dispatch, and not in the arrangement, is That the British ,navy might•capture our trade to ports prohibited by the United States. • -This condition too appears to have had its\ origin in i mistake of your meaning in a conversation with MroCanning, as noted by yourself, and in an i infe- Terme thence deduced as to the disposition of this Government. But this double mistake must have been brought to light in time to have been correCied in the neW mission. In urging it, 'Mr. Canning has taken a ground; forbidden by those principles' of de corum, which regulate and mark the proceedings of Governments towards each other. In his dispatch the condition is stated to be for the purpose of se . - , curing the Dona fide intention of America to Pre sent her citizens from trading with France - and cer tain other powers. In other words, to secure a pledge to that etre& against the mala ,fide intention of the United States. And this dispatch too was au thorise.d to be communicated in extenso to the Go vernment of which such language was used. Might • .• it not have been reasonably expelled that such a con dition and such observations would at least, on such an occasion, have been given up by a Government • - willing to smooth the way to an amicable settlement of 'existing ditterences ? . . In his zeal to vindicate his Government, Mr. Jackson too'has attempted a gloss on this most extra ordinary idea of callilT on 3 foreign sov=ereignty, not indeed to make laws for us, bet what is equivalent in principle,. to 'supplra . supposed inability to exe, vine them... He calls such an interposition of his Government not an execution of the law of Con, gres:i, but of a compad• binding as a:public law on parties, and which both would have a common'in terest in seeing duly, executed. 'Ou his' own Kin- LipleS there. ous . ht to be pa recipwcity,. not - only in the exe( unoti . of the compa6l, hot in obl:gafion interest resulting from it. Beside a where .here a reciprocity in compaas between nations toad), ing attribwei of sovereignly, there is of ways. as much of sovereignty gained as 'is parted whit, so i hat there be `no loss nor indignity on either - I , ,Ae. 3d. 'Tne r , ..tnainitig point in the dispkitch, not secured by the arrangement, is that, which that Alikt our prohibitory laws sh.ou;cl rq , c ,, : j e d as w Great Britain, they should be left in for;:e to France and the powers 'adopting or aFting' under her dtgrees. This is the condition whiCh alone properly belongs to the subject.; and it is to be remarked., in the tit - -; plaCe,.that the British proje6t,• of which this .COrldi ton Makes a part, contemplated two things 'u' heir uatute'inCompatible -; one, a repeal of the prohibitory , (15 as to Great Britain, without waiting for tba conile;ioo of a regular treaty; the o.tber a pledge, or eng•:,gement for their continuance as to the other • powers. - Now; from .be -nature of out constituti:;n, which, in this particular, ought to have been attended to by,the British Government, it is wanifst that the Executive authority could have' given no such pledge, that the continuance 'of the prohibitory A6ts, being a subjeel of Legislative con sideration, could no have been provided for until the niceting of the Legislature, and that the condi tion could not, therefore, but have.failed, either in the imrnedtate renewal of commerce with Great 'Bri« fain, of infthe immediate engagement that it should not be renewed with France. The '-British Govern ment ought to -have ,acquiesced in,' and, indeed; ought to have been 'satisfied with the attainment of the important obje6t of an immediate repeal of our 'prohibitory laws; and with the consideration, that the other objeEt, not immediately attainable, was unnecessary at the time, because the prohibition as to France was then ip.tbrce, and because there was every reakin to infer not, only from this hitt from the spirit of the, communications made from time to time, and from the overtures before sub mitted to. the British Government, that, without a repeal of the French decrees, our prohibitory laws would be continued in force against France,. and es pecially in tlie.case ofa repeal - of the British Orders, which would necessarily render a continuance: of the French decrees doubly obnoxious. 'But 'if, on this head, doubts could have been en tertained, instead of rejecting the arrangement,bught not the Repealtog ACt on our part to have been met with a suspension, at least,- of the-Orders in Coun cil, until it could have been seen whether the Non intercourse JA%i, would or would not have been COll-, 'filmed against France ? Such a suspension could not' 'have given, in any point of view; more ‘advantige to the 'United States ; than was given . to Great Britain by the repeal, which bad taken place on their part. If this reasonable course could not live been sub- stituted for the aisavowal, why was not a final di.s avowal suspended with a proposition, that the ar rangement would be execated by Great Btitain in the . etent Of a ,compliance on the part of the United States . with the condition required as to France ? 1 ail) not unaware you maybe told, tharthe non, intercourse law . of the United States did not extend to Holland, though so intimately conneCted with France, and so subservient to her Decrees against neutral corm-Deice. It would not •be improper on thiS occa,ion to Ob.; serve, that this' objection\ can be the less urged bj Great. Britain, as she has herself never in her al leged retaliations adhered to her principle on v..hich they were founded. Thus she has, from thq date of them, until very lately; directed them against the Atnerican trade, even to Russia, although .Russia had never adopted. the French decrees, • nor other Wise violAted' bur neu pal trade with Great Britain. ',So, in ha Order-of April last, she has discriminated, not only-helween the countries devoted to France by the ties of b!ood, and'other powers, .but between Holland, Westpha lia, 'and Naples,, in inforcing her prohibitory order *against the first and not the two last. Whilsi, there, fore, she finds it expedient to make these distind tions, she ought to, ptesume, that We, too, may u perceive equal propripty. in. the distincous We have made. ' But. it maybe of more importance here to com pare the British Order in COuncil of April last, with the arrangement of April, - made . by Nit. Et4..itte.— It will thence be seen how little is the real differ. once, and how trivial it is when compared.,to the ,extensive and serious consequences of the dis avowal. , . Under the Order in Council of April,. all the' ports of Europe, except Franc*, including the king dom of Italy and Holland with their . dependencies, are opetted to our . coMnierge. . Under the arrangement of April, combined with our Act of Non-intercourse, all the ports. of Eu rope, except France'and . her dependencies, includ ing the kingdom-of Italy, would have been opened to our commerce. ' The difference then is reduced merely to Holland, and that again is reduced to the difference between a direct trade to the ports of Holland, anti an rect .trade to' Holland through ,Tonningen, Ham burgh, Bremen, and Embden.- Now, as the injuring of the enemies of Great Britain is the only avowed object of her interdicting Order against our trade, let a computation be made of the effect which this difference between the Or der in Council and the arrangement could possibly have in producing such arr injury. And then let the question be candidly answered, whether, laying aside all consideratiOns of right and justice, sufficient inducements 'ward Lave been found in that result for rejecting the arrangement, and for producing the consequent embarrassments, as well to Great Britain as to the United States. If it be necessary, as Mr. Jackson has stated, to set bounds to a spirit,of encroachment and universal dominion, which would bind all things to its own standard, and to falsify, by honourable and manly resistance, an 'annunciation that all Europe is sub mitting by degrees, effort must be • feeble indeed, which is to be found in the •inconvenience accruing to' tjte formidable fine from the operation of this Or der in Council; and especially when we combine with it the .strange phenomenon of substituting for the lawful trade of the United State; a trade of Bri tish subjects, contrary to the laws of the adverse party, and amounting, without a special license, in the eye of British law, to high treason. Thus much for the Orders in Council. What has taken place with respect to the Chesapeake will equally' engage ) our atttention. • . You will perceive, that throughout the early stages of the correspondence, this case was, in some re spects, improperly confounded with, in others im pr,,perly. separated from; that of the' Orders in Council ; aod particularly that pains had been taken by Mr. Jackson to substitute verbal and vague °bier, vationi on the disavowal of this part of the arrange , men, , tar an explicit and formalexplanation, salt a, wag obviously due. It will be seen also, that, when finally brought to the point, he reterred.for- a iistitication of the disavowal to thede.parture of Mr. from his instructions, without shaving what instructions were, and to allusions to an ex pression it the arrangement, without giving to his meaning the distinctness pre-requisite to a just It appears, however, that he lays great streis on the proposal enclwed in his letter of the 27th Oc tober, as at once indicating the departure of • Mr. Erskine from his instructions ; and as containing the :conditions on the basis of which he was ready to enter on, an adjustment. And from a note from the Secretary of the British Legation, it appears that he has complained of not having received an answer to his proposal, as he had before complained hat no answer had been given to his verbal disclosure on this head in his interviews with me. With respect to his intimations in conversation, es they were preceded by no proper assignment of the reasons for not having executed the original adjuSt• meat.; it cannot be necessary to remark, that no such notice, as he wished to obtain, could,-with any , sort of propriety, have been taken of them. With respect to his written project, it will suffice to remark, Ist, That besides his reluCtant and indistinct ex planation of the disavowal of the_original- adjust . ment, he did not present his_ proposal until he had made such progress in his offensive insinua tion as made it proper to wait the issue of the re ply about to be given to it ; and that this- issue had necessarily put a stop to further communications. 2dly. That although he had given us to under stand that the ordinary credentials, such alone as he had -delivered, could • !tot bind his Government in such a case, his proposal had neither ,been preceded by, nor accompanied with, the exhibition of other commission or full power : nor, indeed, has he ever given sufficient reason to suppose he bad any . such full power to exhibit, in relation to this particular case. It is true, that in his letter of the 23d of OC ' tobei, he had stated an authority eventually to con . elude a Convention between the two countries: .With . out adverting to the ambiguity of the term eventual ly with the mark of emphasis attached to it, and to other uncertainties in the' phraseology, ,it is cleOr that the authority referred to, whatever it ,may is derived from instruCtions silbjea to his own dis- Cretion, and not from a patent commission, such as Might be properly called for. It is true also that in si ,his letter of the 4th of Novernber subs , -quent to his proposal, he says he was possessed of a full power in dire form for the express purpose of Concluding a Treaty or Convention. Bat it still remains uncertain, whether . by the Treaty or Convention to, which it related was not meant an- eventual Cr provisional treaty on the rat gene- relations between the two countries, without any reference to the case of the Chesapeake. Certain it is 'that the British Government, in former like case, as will be seen by the adjustment of that part of the affair at Nootka Sennd, which is analogous to this case, did not consider any such distinct full power as necessary ; nor is there the slightest ground for supposing that Mr. Erskine, although confessedly instruCted to adjust this very case of the Chesapeake, - was furnished- with any authority distinct froM his credential letter. That Mr. Jackson has any such commission is the less to be supposed, as it is but barely possible, that possessing it, he should not, on some occasion, or in some form, have used a language susceptible of no possible doubt on this poiot. But proceeding to the proposal itself, it is to be: kept in mind, that the conditions forming its basis are the very conditions for the deviating from which Mr. .Erskine's adjustment was disavowed. Mr. Jackson; if not on others, is on this point explicit. ‘‘ I now add, (says be) that the deviation consisted '• in nett recording in the official document signed here the abrogation of the President's Proclamation of the '2d July, 1807; as well as the two reserves specified in , the paper of memoranda inclosed in my - official letter to you of the 27th ult." Consideling then the conditions in the proposal as an ultimatum, in what light are we compelled to view such an, attempt to repair the outrage com mitted on the frigate Chesapeake; and to heal the disappoinknent 'produced by a disavowal of a previ ous 'equitable reparation ? It is impossible on such an occasion not to recal the circumstance's which constituted the charatier of the outrage to which such an ultimaturnis now applied. A national ship, proceeding on an im- • portant service, was watched by a 'superior naval : force enjoying at the time the hospitality of. our ports, was followed, and scarcely out o f our waters when she. was, after an insulting,summons, attacked in an -hostile manper, and the ship so injurU as to require expensive repairs, the expedition frustrated, a number of the crew killed and wounded, several carried into, captivity, and one 'of them put co death . under a military sentence. The three seamen, though American citizens, and therefore on every supposition detained as wrongfully as the ship would_ have been detain - ed, have, eotwithstanding, re-, mained in captivity between two, and three years ; and, it may be..acided, 'after, it• has long ceased to be denied, that they are American citizens. • Under these circumstances we are called, upon to ransom the captives. Ist. By acknowledging that a precautionary pro clamation, justified by events preceding the outrage, by the outrage itself, and by what immediately fol lowed it,. was unjustifiable; and that a repeal of it was properly a condition precedent to a reparation for. the outrage. And this requisition -is repeated, too, after such an acknowledgement had been uni-• foil* asserted by this . Government to be utterly in- admissible, and, what, is 'particularly remarkable,. at a time when the proclamation, as is •well under stood, was no longer, in force. - The occasion obvi= ously invited a silent assumption of the existing fad, and this would have excluded the difficulty heretofore found to be insuperable. By throwing into complete oblivion the con du& of the Officer answerable for the murderous : , transaction, with a knowledge too, on our part,, that instead of being pouished,,or even brought to tt,331, he has been honoured by his Government with a new and more important command. ! 3d. By admitting , a right on the part of Great Britain to claim a discharge from our service of de- serters generally, and particularly of her natural born subje&s, without excepting such as had : been naturalized in due form under the laws of the United. States. I,t - has not been explained whether it was meant, i as the universality of the term " deserter" would unpor.t, to include American- cit;zens who might late left the British service. But what possible '. tonsii,erationcould have induced the. British Go. verint ent to expect' that the 'United States could i,.. admit a principle that would deprive our natural ized ctizens of the legal privileges, which they hold in. common with theft. native feiloi,v citizens. The British Government ought not to have made such a propopition ; because it not only, like others, natn, relives aliens, but in relation to the United States has even refused to discharge from the Briti s h see vice native citizens of the United Srates, involun tarily,detained. If an American seaman has resided in Great.. Britain, or has married therein, or has ac cepted a bounty in her naval service, his discharge therefrom, on the regular application to the British Government, has been, invariably refused by its Board of Admiralty. This I state on the authority of the official reports made to this department. it..: is, therefore, truly astonishing, that, - with a kno-W- . 'age of these facts, such ,a pretension should have been advanced at all; but, above all, that it should' have been made a sine qua non to an a& of plain justice, already so long delayed. , This is the more to be regretted, as the omen does not favour the belief we would willingly cherish, that no pre determination exists in the Council's of his Britannic Majesty irreconc;lable td an amicable arrangement an affair, which, affeding so deeply the hoqour of.the United States, must precede a general, regu lation of the mutual interests of .the two countries; After, the correspondence with Mr. Jackson was terminated, two notes, of which copies are here with sent to you, were presented to qie in the name and by the hand of Mr. Oakley, the Bridal . Secre tary of Legation. The first requested a document, haiing the effect of a special passport or safeguard to Mr. Jatksar: end his faintly during their stay in the United States. As the laws' of this.country allow an unobstrn6led passage through every part of it, and, with the •law of nations, equally in force, proted public'Mi nisters and their families in all their privileges, such anapplication, was regarded as somewhat singular. , There was' no hesitation, however, in furnishing a certificate of his public charataer, and to be. used in any mode he . might chuse. But what surprised most was the reason assigned for the application. .The insult he alluded .to was then, for the first time, brofight to. the knowledge of this Government. It had, indeed, been among the rum o urs o f the day, :that some unbecoming scene had taken place at Norfolk,. or Hainpton, between some officers ,be longing to the 4,fricaine, and some of the inhabi tants, and, that it originated in the indiscretion of the former., • No attention having been called for, and no inquiries made, the truth of the case is -un kaown. But it was never supposed that Mr. Jack son himself, 'who was on board the frigate, had been personally insulted ; nor is it yet perceived in what way lie considers it as having happened. . It is, needless to remark, that any representation on the subje& would have instantly received every proper attention: Another ground on which a protection was asked for; is the supposed tendency of the language of our newspapers to excite popular violeuF op Mr. Jackson's person. Had he been longer and batter acquainted with the habits and spirit of.the Ameri can people, he would probably Dever have enter tained an apprehension of that sort. If he meant to animadvert on the tree language of ale newspapers, he might justly be reminded that our laws, as those of 'his country, set bounds to that freedom ; that th 6 freedom of British prints, however great with respect to public charaelers of the United States, has never been a topic of complaint ; and that, suppos ing the latitude of the American Press to exceed that of Great Britain, the difference,:is infinitely, less in this respect between the two than between. the British press and that of the other nations of • Europe. The second note seems to be essentially intetictel as a justification of the condo& of Mr. Jackson in that part of his correspondence which has given um,- . brage. If he . , intended it as a conciliatory advance; he ought not to have preceded it by a demand of passports, nor by the spirit or the manner in 'Which .thatdemand was made. He ought, in faal, if such was his objed., to have substituted - an explanation ih . the place.. of his reply to my premonitory fetter. But whether he had one•or other, or both of these objects in view, it was necessary fir hitt') to have done more than is attempted in this paper. It was never objeded to him that he had statedit • as a fad that the three propositons• iii question had been submitted to me'by Mr. 'Erskine, nor that he stated it as made known to him.by the instruations of Mr. Canning, that the instruction to Mr... E rskine, containing those three conditions, was the only'one from which his authority was derived td conclude an arrangement in the matter to which it, related. • The objection Was, that a knowledge of this restriaion of the authority of Mr. Erskit.e was imputed to this Government, and the repetition of the imeutation.even after it bad beeit so frequently disclaimed. This was so gross an attack on the ho bour and veracity of the Governtnent, as to forbid all further communications from him. Care was nevertheless taken, at the same time, to leave' the door open for such as might be made thrziugh any other channel, however little the probability that any satisfactory communications would be received through any channel here. To the other inctosures I add a printed copy of a paper purporting to be a circular letter from Mr. Jackson to the British Consuls in the United States. This paper speaks for itself. As its contents entire ly correspond with the paper last referred to, so they were unnecessary for the ostensible object of the kite', which was to make known Mr, Jack son's change of residence, and as the paper was at once put into circulation, it can only be regarded as a verbal address to the American people of a repre sentation previously addressed to their Government; a procedure which cannot fail to be seen in its true light by his Sovereign. The observations to which so much extent his been given in this letter, with those contained in the corrzspondetice with Mr. Jackson, will make you fully acquainted Avith the conduct. and the cbaraOer he has developed, with the necessity 'of the step taken in refusing further communications from him, and with the grounds on which the Presicknt struels you to request that he may be immediately recalled. You are particularly instruated, at the same tiMe, in making these communications, to do it in a manner that will leave no doubt•of the un diMinished desire. of .the United States to unite in all tie means the best calculated to establish the relations of the two countries on the, solid founda tion.of 'justice, of friendship, and of mutual into -rest. With great tespea, ace. , It. SmI7H. Vim. Pinckney, Esq. &c, S Sti You (I i tstar tilly h Si r y Rig!. 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